


Execution-Style

by Helicon



Series: Saving Face [2]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Ayleid Ruins, In Medias Res, Innuendo, M/M, Poor Life Choices, Sexual Frustration, gross corpses, gross elves feeling connected to gross corpses, the whole fic is one big flashback, towards people or literature? we may never know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-06 11:29:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8748898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helicon/pseuds/Helicon
Summary: High Rock wasn't such a good idea after all. But for the time that it was... oh, it was.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Because yansurnummu wanted more Nethyn and I was already working on this one anyway.

Ash-grey fingers interlace with charcoal-grey, nails filed down into ovals a stark contrast to the jagged, bitten mess that was the other set. They both come to rest on the rain-soaked lap of the latter, and another hand clears a lock of drenched hair away from the area, tucking it away, in the back.

 

She leans in as if to kiss him, but only cocks her head and squints at the clearer look she has of his face. The rims of his eyes are purple, betraying the notion that his face is only wet from the storm outside. He’s changed, but she knows it’s still him. His nose is still bent oddly, beaklike, broken once and healed wrong, and his lips are still the softest things she’s ever laid eyes or mouth on.

 

He smells different. He smells nice, in a familiar way that disturbs the vampire more than the state of him.

 

“So, how was High Rock?” she asks. She means well enough by it; it’s a light-hearted question with no real answer expected -- it’s to _ be _ expected.

 

He says, “It’s complicated.”

 

“What happened to your magic, love…?” she asks now, caressing the side of his smooth cheek, concerned as much as she can be: too much, but not enough in her own eyes.

 

Again, he says, “It’s complicated.”

 

“It can't be that complicated.” She retrieves a towel and a dry nightgown -- her shirts will fit him, but the waistbands of her skirts are far too narrow. Watching him dry his hair and face, and change there in the hallway (no one is awake besides them, and so Nethyn retains his modesty) should be an exciting event for Evesaes, but the way he does it gives a far more somber mood: he is slow but far from sensual, as if every motion takes everything out of him, as if the gown is ten times its weight and his arms are weakened.

 

He looks no different body-wise, save maybe for the visible warmth of his skin, the purple-ish flush of his chest and face, and a slightly fuller figure that she writes off as a result of his odd eating habits (nothing for days at a time, then anything palatable in sight -- something he was far more prone to in Morrowind than in Skyrim) catching up to him. On this, she refrains from commenting. It doesn't take an acute eye to notice his chest is not bound, and the singular breast tinted green with bruising. 

 

Heaving a sigh, Evesaes reaches over and draws him in close, fingers spread across his back, taking in some of his heat as he is warm enough for it to overtake him. It feels absolutely divine, as something she's lacked a good majority of her life, but on Nethyn... “Are you sick?” she asks. His face is now nestled in her neck, his breath as hot as his body, coming in ragged bursts and sobs. “Neth? What happened? Neth, love, you can tell me…” 

 

When he doesn't answer, she scoops him up into her arms and carries him upstairs to rest after such a long, apparently taxing journey. He lays on his back in her bed, staring up at the ceiling, hands folded over his chest. Silence fills the space between them.  She joins him, mimics him, until he finally makes to speak.

 

“Ev--” he starts. He stops. Words catch in his throat with no intent to come out. 

 

“Ev.”

 

“Nethyn.”

 

He rolls over into his side, unable to face her. “Ev…” he continues. His voice is a whisper.

 

Suddenly, Nethyn laughs. And he doesn't stop laughing, that's the thing that puts Evesaes on edge. It's no madman’s laughter, but close for the hint of fury and disbelief. There is no humor in his laugh or in him at all.

  
“I've been terribly wronged, that's what!”


	2. Chapter 2

The first thing to note about Corentin Duval was that, in Nethyn’s eyes, he greatly resembled the harelipped man from Whiterun. Same dark and messy hair, same face, same bitchy, stuck up, leave-me-be attitude that he as a Telvanni could appreciate when it finally wasn't being applied to him. 

 

Always with his nose in something. Always arguing about how one thing or another could be better.

 

Among Bretons, Corentin best matched the common descriptor -- short, long-fingered, ears coming to a small point, his green eyes slanted slightly and with no distinction between the forehead and eyelids. Nethyn pondered the thought that there may be more recent meri blood in him, as his cheekbones were about as pronounced as his own, but one didn't just _ask_ that.

 

He found the man rather a lot more attractive now that he wasn't on his ass. The second night of their journey he found himself in quite the position upon waking, drool on his pillow, and -- despite having slept on the ground in a bedroll that particular night -- no real dissatisfaction. Though he knew it might pose a problem, the issue would resolve itself in time. Enough time spent around Corentin would fix that right up.

 

The second thing was that he recognized Nethyn as well.

 

“Don't touch that!” Came his awfully shrill voice. Nethyn’s fingers rose quickly from a dusty tome, and his head snapped in the man’s direction. “You don't know how old that is--”

 

He scowled and defiantly lifted it up with extreme care. “Over a millennium, I’d wager, by the dating on the inside of the front--” He opened the book and showed it to the Breton. “--cover.”

 

His lip curled. “Hekane didn't warn me you'd be trouble.”

 

“Really? Because, she warned  _ me _ about  _ you. _ ”

 

“Did she,” was his answerless question. “Well, I'm still in charge of this research.”

 

“Then appreciate the fact that you have me under you.”

 

Corentin snorted and disappeared deeper into the ruin, leaving Nethyn to the books. He blew off the dust on a more recent-looking piece, setting himself to work on transcribing what he knew from memory, and expecting as much. Most was foggy, and he cursed himself for forgetting his notes so far away in Blacklight, but what was done was done -- no going to get them now, he figured.

 

It wasn't Ayleidoon, but an archaic Tamrielic. Definitely easier to read, but this seemed to come out of the Second Era at the latest.  _ Half these word forms haven't been used in centuries!  _ Heart racing, he got to work on translation.

 

“Knowledge is power… forbidden knowledge is… ultimate power.” Odd. Not unbelievable, but odd. He skimmed over the last few lines once and then again. “‘For the desire to know is beyond reckoning, and in... recompense?, whatever price is named shall be met.’”

 

Corentin called up from down a flight of stairs, “What was that, Nethyn?”

 

“Nothing you'd be interested in!”  _ Nonsense.  _ “Ayleids and Hermaeus Mora. Nothing new, just reading out loud.”

 

“I’d heard this place was used by his cults,” Corentin mused as he re-ascended the stairway to join him. “Give it here.” He took the notes from Nethyn’s hands. “‘Our Ancient Roots’. This must be left behind from the Primeval Seekers…”

 

“Well, yes, I figured as much since it says so right there.” He paused. “Who?”

 

So suddenly the papers were whisked away and Corentin walked off in that semi-dancing way of his. Nethyn couldn't help but to stare, briefly, until the man turned back around. “The Primeval Seekers,” he said, “saved Bisnensel in the Second Era. The lake's dried up a _considerable_ amount since, yes, but  _ they  _ stopped the nereids from executing their plot to flood it. All this ancient knowledge--” and here Corentin waved his free arm. “--would have been lost!”

 

A longing ache inside Nethyn's chest took form as Corentin moved further away with the papers. He barely stopped himself from reaching out, instead choosing to wander back down the hallway, muttering to himself about snobby Breton fucks and hastily assumed, completely without base in any kind of fact or knowledge, trust issues. 

 

A deep female voice called out from far away. “Corentin! Nethyn! You'll both want to see this!” 

 

Nearly giving himself whiplash by how fast his previously-lowered head shot up, Nethyn’s face split into a grin and he found himself shouting back nothing he could remember two seconds after in excitement and making his way towards her -- though not as quickly as Corentin. He tried not to judge himself too hard for it.

 

The entirety of their expedition group had circled around a corpse-looking thing, but to say it was a  _ thing  _ would do it a disservice. Humanoid at best and terribly mutated at worst, when Nethyn got a proper view of it, it was long and shrubbish, slimy, with the half-desiccated face of a mer of some denomination.

 

Or, half the face, really. The rest seemed to merge into tendrils like an organic beard. His heart began to beat harder, but when he tried to place exactly  _ why, _ he came up with nothing.

 

All he knew at that point was that he wanted, needed, to be as near to it as possible.

 

Corentin whipped a glove out of his pocket as a barrier to touch the creature with, recoiled in disgust at the mucus that came off as he withdrew his hand from the corpse’s body-tendril, and passed a cleaner pair to Nethyn.

 

He wasted no time in lifting its top half up and turning it over in his arms, marveling awed at its hideous deformity. With the eyes gently pried open, he could see the odd golden hue, made only stranger by the pupils split like oil in water. Despite their deathly dullness, he felt compelled to retain contact, like something beautiful built up inside him just by looking, by sharing the same space as it. It was as if something he'd been looking for all his life, with no idea what it was until now, had been presented to him.

 

It made even less sense why the initial sight had excited him so.

 

“It's like you,” Corentin remarked. “The same eyes.”

 

_ He's right, you know. _

 

“Sure isn’t something you see every day…” Nethyn found that he could not tear his eyes away from the monstrosity before him. There was a link, a kinship, a heartache he felt only by seeing it that he craved more of. He lamented its death despite never having known it, despite having been born centuries after it walked these halls -- and for how long that must have been, it was  _ remarkably _ preserved, even otherworldly. Tears started to form, unwanted, and he blinked them back to spare himself the shame in front of his fellows.

 

As Corentin and the rest of the group came to a quick consensus that they were done here for today, or even for good, they had to drag Nethyn away from the body.

  
The image of the mutated creature stayed fresh in his mind all the way to Evermore.


	3. Chapter 3

“What is  _ wrong _ with you?” In Corentin’s room, somewhere Nethyn hadn't expected to be at any point during this trip but now here he was, the two sat on opposite sides -- Corentin, getting dressed on the bed, and Nethyn, leaning on the long mirror with his forehead pressed to the glass. 

 

“I'm not sure,” he finally said after a long pause. “It was fascinating, that's all.”

 

The man brought two fingers to each side of his head and rubbed impatiently. “You know why you're here, right?”

 

He rolled his shoulders back, then glanced over them, giving Corentin a small smile. “Because none of these people interest you, and you're a long way away from your woman back home?”

 

He only frowned.

 

“What, then?”

 

Fingers now steepled over his bare lap, Corentin sighed and lowered his gaze in apparent exasperation. “Please stop being so… weird, in front of people. You've already put them off with that display back there.” He pulled up his leggings and clicked his fingers to gain the attention of a highly offended Nethyn. “Come on, turn around now.”

 

As Nethyn approached the bed and took a seat on the other side, pulling his legs up under him and facing the younger man, he let his smile grow a fraction and splayed his fingers out on the bedsheets. “What?” he asked. “I thought this was the part where you ask me to leave and think about that for the night.”

 

“Hekane told me a bit about you,” said Corentin. “I must say I'm… interested.”

 

“In me?”

 

“In the concept of you.”

 

“At least you can admit it.”

 

He laughed.  _ Corentin just laughed. You actually got a laugh out of Corentin ‘No Funny Business’ Duval.  _ “How does this work?” He reached hesitantly toward Nethyn’s jaw, falling short when he jerked away.

 

“How much did she tell you?” Not even caring that he'd snapped, Nethyn’s fingers tensed in the blanket and his shoulders hunched more than he would have liked. “What did she tell you?”

 

“Not too much!” Chasing after some kind of damage control, Corentin tried to calm him. It worked, somewhat. Nethyn unclenched his fists and let his body relax a fraction. “She only told me about the magic you specialize in. I thought it was interesting, and I thought I would ask you if you came by.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“I came to the other conclusion on my own.”

 

_ “Oh.” _

 

“Yeah.”

 

Nethyn withdrew on himself. “Don't you think that's a little far to assume, Corentin?”

 

“No, no I don't.” He finally took his hand back and considered it for several minutes of silence. “I don't think ill of you at all, I hope you know. I'm only fascinated.” As if hoping that might fix things between the two of them, he laid his hand on the bed between them and looked at Nethyn expectantly.

 

_ Go on, you know he didn't mean anything by it. And if he did… _

 

Nethyn pressed firm onto the soft back of the man’s hand with his palm. A brief indent was made in the mattress, then filled back out as the two separated. “I'll be going,” he later said.

 

Corentin looked almost disappointed. “You won't stay a bit longer? I'd like to know more.”

 

Sighing, he stood, not yet making for the door. “My secrets are mine,” he said. “I want some time to myself.” With that, he strode through the door and down the inn hallway, into his room, where he found the Orc rooming with him to be in sleeping possession of the blankets.

 

_ Damn. And here you were wanting to avoid Corentin. What do you do? _

 

The voice gave Nethyn pause.

 

_ What I do is not avoid Corentin tonight. He won't touch me. These are no Dunmer and I'm sure the nobility are above that. _

 

That must have been enough to shut it up for now. 

 

_ Maybe if you asked? _

 

It knew of the thoughts he tried to keep a secret.

 

**_Shut up!_ **

 

“So, how  _ was  _ that time to yourself? Seemed awfully short…”

 

Corentin, novel in hand, crossed his legs beneath the covers as Nethyn stalked back inside. His face was that of sardonic humor. His voice, no better. Nethyn felt his upper lip curl as he turned his head the absolute minimum amount to look at the man in agreement, though cleverly disguised as distaste.

 

“Shut it. Mogdurz is taking up the entire bed, and I won't subject myself to sleeping in the chair again.” He kicked off his shoes and laid himself down on the edge of the bed, a good distance from Corentin. “And I figured, since you wanted me to stay longer anyway, I might as well.”

 

He noticed a chuckle between the rustling of sheets from the other side, but thought nothing of it. Bitterness prevailed. Was it really so difficult for him to accept that maybe his condition was just some odd fascination of Corentin’s, and he was looking much too far into it? The man might have had a friend or a relative suffering the same -- after all, Nethyn knew of plenty other people like him; Ev, those elusive and celebrated Tribunal priests touched and half-saved by Vivec themself… he faintly recalled having a grandparent -- no mother nor father and filling neither role, the spouse of a grandfather but no mother of a child -- down the line, somewhere. It wasn't unheard of. Better-received, perhaps, in Morrowind than in High Rock, but not unheard of.

 

Before he could succumb to jealousy as he always did at the thought of the Vimer, he pulled the covers up above his head and forced himself to change his train of thought.

 

Maybe he meant it as some kind of backwards, misworded compliment. Either way, it was far too late at night to ask and risk launching the two of them into a whole debate over it. Nethyn set the matter to rest--

 

_ But--! _

 

_ To rest! _

 

\--and let himself drift off.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GOOD FUCKING GOD I HATE ME
> 
> sorry for such a long wait i literally could not bring myself to write for like a month. its finally over. my nightmare is finally over. it's shorter than i would have liked but look how much i care
> 
> bad things happen to Nethyn today

That morning, all through that morning, Nethyn swore up and down that the hazy feeling in his head, the slow breakdown of every part of him that insisted he was real and a part of the world around him, was just a result of the poor night’s sleep he'd gotten in Corentin’s bed. While the rest of the team went off into the city for a leisure day, he remained holed up in that same room, staring at himself in the mirror and stating loud and clear that he was fine. Everything was fine.

 

By noon he found himself with close to zero functioning mental faculties, and awoke some time later -- not too much later, as the sun was still high in the sky. The emptiness in his head was slowly on its way back to refilling itself, though his thoughts were more focused on whatever had happened to him just then.

 

_ Maybe another episode. You're long overdue for one, at this rate. _

 

He hoisted himself up off the bed that he didn't remember falling into, and waited to regain coordination before making his way outside.

 

The weeks flew by. He didn't see Bisnensel again after that day, but Corentin remained a constant. In the streets, the inn, his cousin Odette’s home when the rent money dried up and disappeared into nowhere. The group was split but they remained together, as housemates, then friends, when Nethyn came to see past how agitated Corentin could make him from time to time. 

 

One morning he found himself draped across the man’s chest, sore in the hips but still clothed -- at least in his shirt and underwear -- with the side of his head right above Corentin’s heart.

 

These days grew more frequent, from the one instance to two in a month, to any weekend the two found themselves awake at the same time. Before they could admit there was something. Before autumn came with the cold and Odette’s son was bedbound and contagious, and Nethyn and Corentin left again for Daggerfall.

 

He fell off the horse. He'd always hated those creatures.

 

In Daggerfall, Corentin dragged him first to the apothecary for his winter illness (“It’s because Henri threw up on you,” Corentin had said with a scowl. “It gets cold and people get sick all over the place, spreads it around.” Nethyn didn't argue that.), then into the back room, because Nethyn would not stand or keep the medicine down past his lips.

 

It's there, hours later, that Nethyn decides it's time to go home.

 

It was only ten minutes before that when Corentin gave him a reason.

 

“I don't think we can make this work,” said Corentin. “Jacqueline wouldn't--”

 

Nethyn coughed, regained himself, then took in what he’d just heard. “ _ Jacqueline! _ ”

 

His wife. His  _ wife. _ When Nethyn had joked about Corentin having a woman at home, that was all it was -- a joke. No answer from Corentin then had left him with the assumption that there  _ was _ no woman.

 

Even after hearing from so many mouths of how tainted he was, he felt it so much more now.

 

“How much did you love Jacqueline if you spent your year and a half away from her seeing a friend of an  _ associate? _ ” 

 

The two men stared each other down two paces apart, merging vibes of frustration, anger, and desperation. Infuriated both at the unfairness of the situation and the sudden excuses Corentin was slinging, that he'd chosen now of all times to bring his wife into it --  _ now, _ when he was ill and at his least likely to retaliate  _ and for good reason! _ \-- Nethyn dug his nails into the wall and his arm stung with the muscle strain. 

 

“You would,” he breathed. “You-- you  _ would _ do it like this, wouldn't you? I thought… I thought better of you, you know. That you wouldn't--” As was inevitable, his voice broke utterly and what was meant to scathed descended into pitiful sobs, gasps for air, Nethyn striking Corentin as he tried for a sympathetic touch. “Don't you  _ dare. _ ”

 

Corentin leaves first, sparing a sad look back that Nethyn didn't care to see. The apothecary -- a middle-aged matronly figure -- came to sit down with him, having heard the fight, and offered an ear to listen, but Nethyn had no more to say; only a question. Only the brief shuffle of scant emergency coin in his pocket, and sweat and fear in the air.

 

So when the fare back to Falkreath came out to be too much (no one would ride through the Reach with such certain death in store), he threw down  _ Our Ancient Roots _ on the counter of a librarian and immediately felt he'd ripped out a piece of himself. Despite all that, he trudged as metaphorically as possible back to the stables, and with only one stop in Dragon Bridge when his sickness failed to taper off within the week.

 

Falkreath was still such a long ways away.

 

* * *

 

Over the course of the hour that Nethyn’s story took to tell, with no break to breathe or explain, he and Evesaes have found themselves outside in the garden, lacking all company but the hens. She recognizes the end of it by his sudden lengthy silence, and his sudden and uncharacteristic inability to look her in the eye for his own obvious shame. 

 

He never outright told her what Corentin had done, what had happened for him to come home in such a state. Ev considered herself to be of fair intelligence for her education, and possessing of the reasoning skills that one of her profession must, and partway through the end had drawn her own conclusions. Needless to say, it had come as no shock to her.

 

She leads him back inside, as she fears that -- at this close proximity to the lake -- he would attempt to drown himself, and she doesn't blame him in the least, but she fears all the same. One hand firm on the small of his back, she sits at the bottom stair with him and lets him lay his head on her chest.

 

“Whatever you need, Neth, you know I'm here.”

 

Finding him entirely unresponsive, she shifts her hand to his hip on the far side, and pulls him into her lap. “I'm not judging you. Promise.” Another sob escapes him, prompting Ev’s maternal shushing. “Look, if you don't want--”

 

His head snaps in the direction to face her, furious and afraid, reprimand and even insult boarded up behind his closed lips.

 

_ He doesn't even know, himself, _ she thinks.

 

With a great sigh, she coaxes him back into a more agreeable mood (with no lack of effort). Her hand comes to rest on his middle, the presumed softness having an unanticipated lack of give, and confirms her suspicions from the start.

 

Volaris, for a while, had the same scent about her.

 

She strokes his hair lovingly, occasionally kissing the top of his head, though she can feel his melancholy having transferred to her for sharing. “How long?” Her voice doesn't come above a whisper. Volaris is in the house, and such a topic, she knows, will send the poor girl back into her depression. She's only just managed to shake the worst of it off after it came back with such a vengeance.

 

“Two.”

 

“Weeks?”

 

“Months.”

 

Evesaes shakes her head and holds Nethyn in place, not moving her hand away until he sees fit to make her. The moment does come, but in him turning around to settle his face in her neck, not out of frustration and anger.

  
“Oh, Nethyn…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there definitely will be something coming after this tho. it's far from over and honestly it hurts me to think about writing any more this year so it will BE a while but it will happen


End file.
